Knowing how to manage change is an increasingly important skill for businesses. But how do you get your teams to participate in new ways of doing things? Read the article… This article was published in Reflets ESSEC Magazine n°113.

The end of Theory X companies: a mistaken prediction
In their joint 2009 publication “Freedom, Inc”, Isaac Getz and Brian M. Carney ask a key question: “why did McGregor’s prediction in 1950 that all Theory X companies would have disappeared within a decade never come to pass?”.

“Get people involved, get them to participate”. This maxim is the fundamental precept of any change management initiative, because it is widely held that participation in a project fosters a sense of ownership. If you need to carry out a diagnosis of the current situation in order to identify the changes to implement, invite your teams to contribute as they will buy in much more quickly to the outcomes than if you had carried out the diagnosis without them.

Monday – 10:30am – The Executive Boardroom The CEO of Groupe M., a manufacturing company that is one of the market leaders in its sector, announces an important piece of news: the company is in the process of buying out a rival start-up company. This latter firm has been causing waves of panic among the market players since its creation five years previously.

Maud Alluin Ndour is the director of MAN & Co, a management consulting firm. Her firm has developed a method that aims to further the adoption of energy renovation projects by the co-owners of housing complexes; a means of making a tangible contribution to the expansion of sustainable housing in our towns and territories… This original application of the techniques of change management to an audience of private individuals is well worth relating….

AM+DA : Maud, can you tell us how you came to lend your management consulting skills to the development of sustainable housing?

A few months ago, we received a call from a pharmaceutical company that was in the midst of a reorganization program. The people at the grass roots were highly resistant to the project and the people at the top wanted to get to the heart of the reasons for this resistance. They were particularly concerned by this reaction because they had pulled out all the stops to outline the stakes of the transformation to their staff, making it clear that it was a vital change for everyone in the company. Read more

The vast majority of managers who are responsible for leading a change project are fully aware of the advantages of involving their team members in order to reach a successful conclusion. At the same time however, they regret that they are rarely able to do so, for two specific reasons.Read more

A Director’s role is to decide what direction the company should take and then to define what changes need to be made in terms of strategy or organization in order to keep on track towards this goal. However, because they are not sufficiently aware of what really goes on at grass roots level, directors tend to have difficulty in handling the operational implementation of the required changes. First-line managers on the other hand, are able to put their finger on what is working and what is not working, but are often somewhat clumsy about presenting this information to their directors, if there are opportunities to do so. They find it difficult to distance themselves from the issue and are unable to grasp the complexity of the constraints that the directors have to work within. To successfully implement change, practical answers are needed to find ways of helping the directors and the people out in the field to interact. Let’s take a look at a concrete example, inspired by missions that we have recently accomplished. Read more